Prologue

Knife

Punctures

Your lungs

Now you can't breath.

My name is Shane; at least that's what I call my self. That name was given to me by my father, he loved old westerns so much that he named me after his favorite, however my "mother" decided my name should be Anthony and so on my birth certificate my name reads as follow: Anthony Shane Richard. But you will know me as Angier Hawkings. The Details and events you are about to read about are of my childhood and my experiences growing up without a family.

I'm not going to tell you how hard it was for me to live or how difficult it was to find my place; I'll let you make your own distinctions about that. What I want is to leave behind some kind of record that my pathetic life existed. I will always remember what happen to me no matter how hard I try to forget, and I'm going to make sure the people responsible never forget either. I will probably seem like a deranged lunatic by the end of this story, but I hope you can keep an open mind. But when my story is concluded...

It will finally be within reach... The goal of my desire. All that's left to do is raise my hand and pull the trigger... Then and only then will it finally end.. All my pain, my humiliation, all the suffering I've gone through...

It ends here, or maybe this is just the beginning...

Act I

Chapter 1

Age: 5 years old

Ache

Heart stops

You drop

Your on your knees now.

I woke up slowly. There's loud noises' coming from another room, what is it? I'm still to far asleep to understand what's going on. It's piercing and hoarse, but it's two different sounds. Then I realized what was going on, my parents were fighting again. I roll over to look at my alarm clock, it was 2 A.M. I couldn't make out what they were saying, it sounded like it was about me, but I wished they would have stop. Back and forth they went, I heard slapping and thud sounds and I already know what's going on. My "mother" is hitting my father again; she was always like this...

My father's damned pride kept him from fighting back. He always said that he'll never hit a woman, which my mother took advantage of with ease... Why did my father marry this woman? All she did was scream and hit him... At least it's wasn't me on this night... I looked down at my broken wrist as tears welled up from the memory. I heard a door slam and I knew it was over, my mother had recited into her room and my dad was left to sleep on the sofa. I was to get up early in the morning to see my doctor, checking up on how my wrist was healing. Luckily for me my father will take me. I don't know what I would have done without him... At least at this point.

I wish though I could have told him the truth. When he asked me about my wrist, I was too scared to tell him the truth... Scared because my mother was in the emergency room with me. I told him I was playing with some kids from the down stairs apartment, and I happened to slip on cardboard we were playing with and landed on my wrist. He didn't seem to believe me at first then my mother intruded, saying she had been watching me when it happened and that I was too careless. The doctor came back with the X-ray; my wrist had popped out of place and had a small fracture.

The truth was my mom was yelling at me because I got play-dough on the living room carpet. I wouldn't look at her, this pissed her off, and I thought I saw her hand rise as she was telling me to look at her. I started to run for my room because I thought she was going to hit me again... I wanted to crawl under my bed, I had a bunk bed and she couldn't move it by herself very well, I could escape from her there.. But I was too slow. She caught me by my left arm and started screaming, "YOU THINK YOU'RE GONNA RUN FROM ME?" I tried to jerk my arm from her grip but to no avail. And the next thing I saw was the wall closing in fast, she had my left arm, I raised my right arm to protect my face and that's when it happened.

I had never felt anything so painful; I didn't think anything could be this painful! I laid on the ground withering in pain I couldn't stop crying and screaming. This only made my "mother" angrier. She was screaming at me to shut up, telling me she would really give me something to cry about if I didn't stop. All I could do was tell her how much it hurt and that it felt like it was broken. This made her realize what happened and stopped.

She screwed up, she left proof. I remember her spitting on me and cursing as she walked off down the hall. I still couldn't stop crying, it hurt so bad, looking at it sent me into shock I tried to move my fingers but they wouldn't move, it looked twisted. It was too much to take in. I couldn't help it I vomited there on the floor.

I heard my mother getting her keys; she walks over to me and stops. She's seething now, pissed of unbelievably that I puked on the floor. She start's screaming more and kicked me in the side. She grabs my left hand and drags me up and starts pulling me towards the door. She's still pulling me down the stairs and it takes all the energy I have to keep up and not fall down. We're finally in the car and she's sitting there. The pain is still too much I can't stop crying. Finally she talks in a low and it sounded like a strained soft voice.

"I didn't mean to hurt you Anthony. You need to learn to obey your mother. If you hadn't of ran this wouldn't have happened. Remember I love you."

She's stroking my hair and I could do nothing but look away from her disgusted. I couldn't stop shivering and crying, I couldn't believe that her apology was blaming me for what happened. I hated her so much!

"Now look, you let me do all the talking understand me? I will tell the Doctor what happened and you will not correct me or tell him different understood? If anyone else knew the truth, you would be in very big trouble. If you tell anyone especially your father, you will be sent to a foster home and you will never see you father, his family, your brother, or me ever again. Understood?"

All I could do was nod shakingly, I didn't have any energy to talk, and there was just too much pain.

We're finally in the emergency room and the doctor is asking questions while looking at my wrist. My mother speaks for me telling him that I'm too shocked and exhausted to speak, saying she witnessed the whole thing, this doesn't phase the Doctor as he just keeps asking away while moving my wrist lightly, causing me to seethe in pain. We're finally in the X-ray room and its taking so long for him to take the damn thing. My dad arrives after we finish in the X-ray room and we're sitting in the waiting room and I tell him the same story that woman gave the doctor.

That was almost a month before hand. After that occurred my mother didn't touch me for a long time, too afraid of leaving more evidence. Or maybe it's because my dad put a request in at work to change his schedule around to be home around me more. He probably suspected what actually happened and didn't want it to get worse. I wanted to scream it out to him what happened but I couldn't... "Why can't I? Why..." Those words repeated over and over and over in my head, till I cried my self to sleep.

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I don't remember much more after that, it's all very hazy. Shortly after this incident, my father and "mother" get a divorce... And after the custody hearing I am sent to live with my "mother"...

This is when hell begins...